Tendon pain on the backs of my hands

[Marlon]

I'm running into a problem with my hands that's very new to me. I've looked through the forum and haven't been able to find any other topics about it, sorry in advance If I'm posting about something that's already been covered.

I had surgery at the beginning of this summer (unrelated to my wrists) and jumped into training probably much more hastily than i should have, no surprise, within a matter of weeks I was developing some chronic pain in my wrist. As a result I started using coach's wrist pre-hab series just about everyday before every workout and hand balancing session. The wrist pain began to subside almost immediately and with the help of occasionally icing and contrast baths my wrist pain has now almost entirely been eliminated. Unfortunately, in it's place I'm having problems with what the title of the post suggests. A week or two ago the pain was mainly on the back of my left hand and closer to the wrist, and now It's solely on the back of my right hand up near the knuckle of my middle and ring finger. It's only really aggravated when pressure is applied to my wrist while it's bent back (like in a handstand), or if i actively try to pull my wrist back into such a position.

So apart from the obvious measures that I should be taking: rest/ice/wrist pre-hab, I'm curious if anyone has dealt with similar pain and If it can be attributed to anything in particular. I find it surprising that hand balancing could actually be putting much strain on the backs of my hands, especially since the pain isn't located on my wrist. My first inclination was to blame wrist push-ups because unless I'm mistaken, and i very well could be, I think they're the only movement that I do which puts much real stress on the area I'm having trouble with. But considering how highly Coach Sommer recommends them and the fact that I've started out very cautiously performing them on my knees with significant piking of my hips that seems highly unlikely.

[Coach Sommer]

Your enthusiasm is causing you to make a common error in training; basically if a little is good, than more should be better. Advanced equilibrists do indeed train every day for multiple hours at a time; however it should always be remembered that they have spent years building up to this degree of work capacity. Despite your very good level of basic strength, your body was not yet ready for the volume with which you were attempting to train.

Without question, wrist pushups are an essential element in maintaining the health of the wrists. However prudence still needs to be used in regard to intensity, volume and number of weekly training sessions. With experience, it is relatively simply to tailor your workouts to your individual level of recovery as your body will always inform you (if you are listening!) when enough is enough.

My recommendation is for you to take at least one complete week off of training; you may perform leg and core work in the interim, but no upper body work. Upon resumption of training, experiment with training only 1-2 days for the first week, with greatly reduced volume, and then assess how the wrist has progressed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Marlon]

Thanks so much for the response Coach. I'll take a week off and see where my hands are at from there